Science To Policy

EJP SOIL understands the need for strong support and strategic activities aimed at a strengthened science-policy interface in the area of agricultural soil management. A main part of the exploitation of research results includes the provision of evidence-based policy recommendations that support the role of soil management in addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The Soil Monitoring Law

Webinar – The Soil Monitoring Law

Webinar with key note speaker Mirco Barbero Team leader of the Soil and Sustainable Land Use Department of DG Environment presenting the overview of The EU Proposal for a Law on Soil.

Policy Workshop Materials

Here you can find PDF versions of presentations and recordings from the different policy workshops .

Sequestering carbon in soils and the associated trade-offs

The 3rd EJP SOIL EU Policy Forum was held on Wednesday 11^th October 2023 online via Zoom from 09:30 CET – 11:30 CET. The event aimed to bring to light supporting scientific findings from the EJP SOIL projects that can contribute towards a framework for agricultural practice selection aimed at carbon sequestration, in different pedoclimatic conditions, that benefit multiple ecosystem services and in turn soil health.

The forum presented findings from 5 EJP SOIL projects in the areas of carbon sequestration and associated trade-offs and encouraged discussion on the future implementation of the proposal of regulation on carbon removals (COM(2022) 672 final).

The event was attended by 111 specially invited persons from 74 institutes and 21 EU countries, 45% of these attendees classified themselves as interacting and engaging with policy at both a national and European level in their respective countries. The smallest proportion of the audience (17%) engaged at only the European level while the remainder (38%) engage only at the national level with policy.

Access the PDFs of the presentations here

Presentation Recordings

Land degradation and healthy soils

This webianr was held on Wednesday 12^th April 2023. This webinar was an open access event and strongly promoted in countries that indicated that avoiding land degradation was a high priority for them. This workshop was attended by 151 persons across 30 countries and involved presentations by 9 panellists from organisations including DG Environment, DG Agriculture and Rural Development, JRC and UNCCD.

Access the PDFs of the presentations here

The EJP SOIL Programme and the initiatives on land degradation – Claire Chenu EJP SPOIL Coordinator, INRAe
Monitoring considerations for the Soil Health Law Proposal – Mirco Barbero DG Environment
Land Degradation Neutrality: What is it and how is it monitored? – Barron Joseph Orr UNCCD
Bundles and indicators of Soil-based ecosystem services and soil threats from SERENA project – Isabelle Cousin INRAe
LIFE Newlife4drylands Project – Christina Tarantino CNR
Land degradation and desertification Living Labs – Pier Paolo Roggero UNISS, Salam Med Project

Presentation Recordings

The EJP SOIL Programme and the initiatives on land degradation – Claire Chenu EJP SPOIL Coordinator, INRAe
Monitoring considerations for the Soil Health Law Proposal – Mirco Barbero DG Environment
Land Degradation Neutrality: What is it and how is it monitored? – Barron Joseph Orr UNCCD
Bundles and indicators of Soil-based ecosystem services and soil threats from SERENA project – Isabelle Cousin INRAe
LIFE Newlife4drylands Project – Christina Tarantino CNR
Land degradation and desertification Living Labs – Pier Paolo Roggero UNISS, Salam Med Project
EU Support for agricultural research and innovation – Leohnard Maier
Soil health actions in the EU compatibility with LDN – Ichsani Wheeler
SALAM-MED Sustainable approaches to land and water management in mediterranean drylands – Paolo Roggero

Policy Workshop om Carbon Farming

EJP SOIL WP8 Science to Policy facilitated an EU level workshop titled “Carbon Farming: From scientific knowledge to policymaking and business models”. The objective of this workshop was to bring together different perspectives and experiences on carbon farming and focus on the scientific requirements and information underpinning carbon farming schemes and economic business models.

Session 1 – A range of perspectives on carbon farming

The Capacity of soils to store carbon – EJP SOIL Project CARBOSEQ – Felix Sidel
How does carbon famring fit into the current political agenda around climate and agriculture? – DG Climate & DG Agriculture and Rural Development – Valeria Forlin, Nicola Di Vergilio, Leonard-Mattaihas Mayer
Carbon Farming: Financing the transition – Rabobank – Jeroen Hakaart
How is carbon farming perceived by farmers? – Confagricultura – Anna Trettenero
Reduction of GHGs in different agricultural systems of Emilia-Romagna region – Regional Government for Emilia-Romagna region – Chiara Ferronato

Session 2 – Carbon farming experiences

Introduction to carbon farming schemes – EJP SOIL Project Road4Schemes – Martin Thorsøe
Bayer carbon initiative in Europe, Middle East and Africa – Bayer – Lionnel Alexandre
Storing carbon in agricultural soils through a collaborative approach involving farmers, an agri-food company and research – Nataïs – Jonah Ehmann
The case study of the Italian Barilla Durum Wheat supply chain – Barilla – Silvia Morelli
Development and implementation of a result-based funding mechanism for carbon farming in EU mixed crop livestock systems – CREA, LIFE Carbon Farming – Sara Caré
AgriCaptureCO2 Support to Regenerative Agriculture – AgriCaptureCO2/ GILAB – Dragutin Protic

Re-wetting peat soils - Why and how?

EJP Soil Regional Forum on “Peatland rewetting in agriculture – why and how?” gathered policy makers at EU and national levels, Farmer representatives, NGOs, and researchers from 12 European Countries with significant areas of organic soils.

This workshop was jointly organized by EJP SOIL WP8 Science to Policy, and the internal project entitled Indicators for successful carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation by rewetting cultivated peat soils (INSURE). This interactive workshop aimed at linking scientists to policy stakeholders. The INSURE project focuses on improving the understanding of controls of element cycling in rewetted ecosystems and to find robust indicators for the trade-offs of wet management.

Session 1 – 4 Keynote speakers

Indicators for successful carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation by rewetting cultivated peat soils (INSURE) project

– Kristiina Lång
Sustainable Carbon Cycles

– Christian Holzleitner
Presentation from Denmark case study

– Martin Thorsøe
Peatland Rewetting and Paludiculture – Prospects of EU CAP and Carbon Farming Initiative

– Jan Peters

Session 2 – Country perspectives:

Nine representatives made short presentations in the second session of the workshop, on the status of rewetting peat soils in each of their countires, answering the following questions:

What is the current status of rewetting peatlands in your country as it pertains to climate change or biodiversity?
What are the country targets that have been / will be set?
What supports or incentives are in place to help the achievement of these targets?
Is there any other relevant information on this topic specific to your country?

Peatland rewetting in agriculture

– Perspectives of Sweden

Rewetting of peatlands to mitigate GHG emissions

– Perspective of Lithuania

Peatland rewetting in agriculture – why and how?

– Perspective of Switzerland

Rewetting peat soils – why and how?

– Perspective of Ireland

Introduction to Peatland policy in The Netherlands

Rewetting peat soils – why and how?

– Perspective of Norway

Political Framework and Activities for Peat Soil Protection in Germany

Bundles of soil services and soil threats at the EU level for present and 2050

Soils are responsible for a large number of ecosystem services but are under threats.

These soil ecosystem services and threats are generally evaluated independently, while it is well recognised that they in-teract among each other. In addition, climate change and land use change reinforce soil threats and decrease soil ecosystem services. Bundles of soil threats and soil ecosystem services could be a tool to visualise the co-localisation of soil threats and soil ecosystem services at the EU level. We propose bundle maps for present and for 2050.